A Delusional Housewife

You should see her. Hunched over her desk, neglecting her children, neglecting her house, and for what? What convinced her that she, of all people, could do this?

The woman is exhausted. Creeping closer to middle age, children, health issues, chronic stress, and do not get me started on the perimenopause. Oof. Reason after reason why she will fail. For one, where will the time and energy come from? It’s not likely she has a spare supply tucked away under the stairs. For another, she has tried this before. Guess where that got her? Nowhere to brag about.

When I bring this up, she desperately grasps at crumbs from her past: the magazine articles (for a now-defunct publication that nobody has heard of), the podcasts, the positive reactions to anything she posted on Facebook. I feel obligated to point out that they were all family and friends. Well, mostly. Of course they were positive.

Yeah, okay. So, she’s not completely inept. But that was years ago, and honestly, nothing to write home about. She didn’t make a single dime, and still, nobody knows who she is. Does that stop her? Unfortunately, not.

Last year, she made submissions to writing contests. Putting her work out there for actual strangers to see and…judge. I tried to stop her. She didn’t win. Not even an acknowledgment. But she was proud of herself regardless. Proud of what?

It gets worse. Somehow.

Now she has the unfettered audacity to think she can write a novel. Not just think it, mind you. She has actually started writing one. Of all the ludicrous, delusional, and harebrained ideas. I swear, this perimenopause thing has disintegrated any remaining shred of sanity she had left.

I try to reason with her. At least get your house sorted. How can you sit down with the unfolded laundry, unswept floors, and unwashed dishes? Shouldn’t that be your priority? She counters that if she waits until all those things are done, she will never have time to write since they will always need doing. The audacity. No doubt she read that in one of her pointless self-help books or heard that from some “inspirational” speaker on the internet. Heaven save us from them all.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” I suggest. “Nobody wants to read what a forty-something housewife has to say anyway.”

She gives me the same look she gives one of her kids when they sass her.

“What about the kids? Are you just going to abandon them to pursue this impossible dream?”

Her shoulders squeeze up to her ears at that. I lean in to it. Never mind that they are all loved, fed, clothed, educated, and more than happy to be left to their own devices for an hour or two. More if she’s really found her groove.

“I want them to see me going after my dream. I want them to see me doing hard things.” Her voice breaks a little, and she curls into herself. “I want them to have the courage to go after their own dreams and know they can do hard things and not waste years of their lives being afraid. Like I did.”

Okay. Okay. I know I sound awful. What sort of person tries to convince someone else, someone they are closely attached to, to give up on their dream? A dream that person has had since they were writing little stories in elementary school? How can I be so cruel? Hatred? Jealousy?

No. It isn’t like that at all.

I have to look out for her. I have to protect her from pain and disappointment. I don’t want her to fail. I don’t want her dream to crumble around her. Do you know the odds for getting a book published, never mind actually selling? Not great. There are so many people with more talent, experience, and resources. She can’t compete.

Isn’t it better that a dream stays just that? A dream? This way, you can visit it, like an oasis, when life gets too much. It can look exactly how you want it to if your imagination is vivid enough. Hers is. It’s endless enough to hold boundless, impossible dreams for her to take refuge in. Believe me, I’ve seen it in action. I get a front seat. If I could only convince her to keep it all in her head. Safe with me.

For almost her entire life, she has wilted under criticism. She’s weak that way. If she does this. If she puts her words out there, she will be so vulnerable. The internet, social media in particular, can be so cruel. How will she bear it when the trolls tromp out to rip part and mangle everything in their path?

When I bring this up, she hesitates. Puts down her pencil, tucks away her laptop, and spends mind-numbing hours scrolling on her phone. I can’t stand seeing her like that, so I point out all of the things she should be doing, and she busies herself with some task or another. Necessary things. She’s glad to get them done, but her mind strays back to the story. What comes next? How will she resolve the conflict? Another idea for a story clamors for attention. Then she’s back at it.

“But the trolls?!” I cry.

“It can’t be about them,” she responds. Still, her jaw clenches, and she grips her pencil as if it might spontaneously fly from her hand. Her eyes stray to the window. She absently watches the wind thrash the trees while her heart does the same to her insides. A deep breath, exhale, and the pencil scratches at the paper.

Have to admire her tenacity, you might be thinking. Humph.

You should know that she tried writing a short story last month. Another writing competition. With a deadline (I may have manipulated her into procrastinating, but she caught on…eventually). She was excited and determined. She knew exactly what she was doing. Until she didn’t.

“It keeps getting away from me,” she’d mutter with her head slumped in her hands. “I’m just writing in circles.”

“Probably because it’s rubbish,” I muttered back.

“I’m just not ready.”

The hours she spent on that thing, with nothing to show for it. The story sits unfinished. Reader, I present to you the woman who believes she can write a whole blessed novel.

She “took a breather” and turned her attention to other things. Like setting up a proper writing space with a tiny desk that fits under her bedroom window. The desk is supposed to be folded away when she’s not using it. A perfect opportunity to convince her it wasn’t worth the effort to put up again. Her annoyingly supportive husband bought her a proper chair and convinced her there was no need to put it away at all.

Sir. Stop interfering. Do you want your wife to be devastated when she fails? Are you going to pick up all of her shattered pieces? Cease and desist with the practical support immediately.

Another surge of delusion has taken hold. It’s painful to watch.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” I snap.

“I do this for myself,” is her cliché and naive reply. “Now, please shut up.”

Rude.

I only want her to see reality, but she insists that I don’t see reality either. She says my perspective is warped by fear and aversion to pain, effort, and disappointment. She really needs to stop reading this new-age psychology/neuroscience nonsense.

“I know you think you’re protecting me from some supposed danger,” she says, fingers pressed to her temples while her leg jiggles back and forth. “And I’ve been letting you, for too long, and it has cost me too much already.”

You want to protect me from disappointment? Well, guess what? I am disappointed. In myself.” She shifts to ease the ache in her back. I sulk in the corner, listening because I have no choice.

“It hurts. I want to be a writer. For the little girl and her quirky little stories, who believed in herself so confidently. For the teenager who spent hours lost in books and even started writing a novel, but gave up because you told her it was too hard. For the young woman who ached to write, but didn’t. For me, now, who longs to feel like herself again.

I’m tired of merely existing. There are so many stories in my head, trapped like birds in a cage, clawing and clamoring to get out. I need to let them out before they wither away, and pieces of me wither away with them.

Yes, they might never be read by anyone else, but they might be. I’m not all that bad at this writing thing, you know. There may be people out there who will love my stories. We’ll never know if I don’t open that cage.”

She believes that nonsense? It sounds like a bunch of unsustainable, inspiring Instagram quote mumbo jumbo. Please, girl. It will take more than that to shut me up.

Doubt still darkens her eyes, despite this moving speech. It has settled in the creases between her eyebrows and curls up in knotted muscles. When I bring this to her attention, she merely shrugs. She tells me she has accepted that it will never really go away, not as long as I’m around, but she won’t let it deter her.

“But what is the point?” I cry. “If you never get published? If you never make a single dollar? Never win awards or accolades? What. Is. The. Point?”

“The point is to do it. What comes after…we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“But…”

She holds up a hand.

“I can’t make you understand. I can’t stop you from doubting. It is what you do. But I also don’t have to listen. I am done with this conversation.”

“You know you’re talking to yourself, right?”

“Yes.”

I watch, shocked, as she turns her back to me, metaphorically speaking (I’m in her head after all), sits down, and writes. Sometimes the pencil practically flies across the page. Sometimes it stalls while she stares blankly out the window. Her face tenses, lights up, or droops in response to her state of mind. I sit in a corner and feel it all.

Do not think she has me on mute permanently. Oh no. She needs to be reasoned with amidst this feverish writing. However, she hunches her shoulders and pretends not to hear me, no matter how eloquently I state my logic. A sigh hisses from her uttermost depths if I dare utter a word of doubt.

When she steps away, I plan my next attack. Perhaps I’ll tempt her with more mindless scrolling. Or, I could stoke the coals of guilt and inadequacy. That is particularly effective on mothers. So much material to choose from. Even better, I will convince her to take time from writing to read books on writing. Or get her on Pinterest, where she can waste time pinning articles on writing that she will never remember to read. Ha! She’ll be convinced she’s still being productive. Procrastination for the “w”, as the kids say. I could probably work in some discouragement, too.

Don’t look at me like that. It’s for her own good! Can you not see that?

I think she’s on to me. She keeps writing. Sometimes I manage to trip her up, and yet, she persists. Stands back up, brushes herself off, and gets back to it. Drafts. Revisions. More revisions. Proofing and editing. The scratch of the pencil and the tapping of the keyboard ring in my ears, well, her ears. Images and sounds whiz around me as each scene plays out in her imagination.

I am disoriented. My voice is weaker. But I’m still watching. Crouching in the corner she has banished me to.

The scratching has stopped. The tapping has ceased. It’s done.

“Good enough.” I hear her say.

“Good enough?!” I whisper hoarsely. “No. No. It has to be perfect!”

“Perfect is impossible. I’m done with perfect.”

She uploads the file. Her finger hovers over the submit button.

“Don’t…”

With a click of a button, it’s too late. She leans back on her chair and stretches. A smile plays at her lips. Her eyes are bright.

“Whatever.” I must get in the last word. “I mean, it was fine. There were some good bits, I guess. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing will come of it.”

“Maybe not.” She stretches again and stands. “I did it. I gave myself a chance. That’s the victory, my friend.”

If I had eyes, they would have rolled so far back I could see behind me. Still, I have to admit, I’m marginally impressed and a smidgen proud. Will that stop me from being a menace of reason and caution from this day forward? Absolutely not. She needs me. She might not want me, but she needs me.

Now, you may be wondering what happened with that story. Was it any good? Does she win the writing contest?

You tell me.